Since you are the bitchin'est dude out there, could you please explain the proper process for moving from piece to piece and testing. I have been doing it a certain way that works fine for A1-2+, but I just wanted to know how the pros do it. Please enlighten us before I go to Zion in March and get myself into a predicament.

Another climber recently attempted to answer this question. And although he did a pretty good job, there were a couple little shall-we-say "comments" that attracted my attention.

The climber to whom I refer wrote,

"Now I clip an adjustable daisy into them with a LOCKER (that way you don't lose $60 by dropping your fvcking (sic) aiders like I did on West Face)..... ......However, I have lived through 1.5 walls, so I must be doing something right."

[bold emphasis mine - Ed.]

The words quoted above contain what we Wall Doctors call "clues", and such "clues" can often be used to infer the identity of the writer. In this instance, these words suggest that the writer may indeed be a Big Wall Theorist.

As you well know, you should NOT accept advice from a Big Wall Theorist since you may end up dead as a result.

Dr. Pee'd On emphatically states that it is NOT COOL to end up dead.

While you can get away with a lot of minor mistakes when leading easy aid, it is abso-fricking-lutely essential to do things right when you are leading hard aid, because an improper sequence can cost you your life. If you are going to be climbing in places like this, you had better bloody be doing things the better way, or we will be scraping your bloodied and battered body from the base of the buttress.

[Aside: In no way did I suggest that the words quoted above are your very words, Adds, nor did I in any way hint that you may well be a Big Wall Theorist.

If Dr. Pee'd On has implied in any way whatsoever that you are indeed a Big Wall Theorist then such an implication was indeed unintentional and purely happenstance.]

Recently a new aider system called the Russian Aid Package has appeared in the marketplace. A Big Wall Theorist recently showed me this system in the Yosemite Lodge Cafeteria, a place where you are as likely to find some of the world's greatest climbers as you are a Big Wall Theorist. It is a very unusual and lightweight system, but since Dr. Pee'd On has no personal experience with them, he will not speak about them for risk of being labelled a Big Wall Theorist himself! This dude knows a lot more about these things than I do.

The way you use the Russian Aid Package is substantially different than the traditional method (which does include many bitchin' Dr. Pee'd On improvements that I am about to explain) but admittedly the Russian Aid Package could well be the better way. With any luck I can get a qualified expert on the Russian Aid Package to make a Guest Appearance here in the Dr. Pee'd On Forum.

[Aside: Should the Dr. Pee'd On Forum in any way resemble the closed Dr. Piton Forum, any such resemblance is completely unintentional and purely co-incidental.]

The first thing you should start out with is a big honkin' cushy-ass big wall harness so your kidneys don't get crushed when you're wearing the thing for weeks at a time. If you have some woosy-ass rinky-dink sport climbing micro-harness you will not be comfortable and you should immediately go here because this is where People Like You belong.

If you know anything about the better way, you will know that "any FOOL can be uncomfortable!"

Your big wall harness should have five beefy gear loops (two on each side and one on the back) plus a hammer holster on the side you hammer. My harness actually has two hammer loops, which is very handy for me since I am a lefty.

The gear loops are fundamental to the better way as I will be later describing all the stuff you will be attaching to them. The stuff that hangs from the gear loops on your big wall harness is called your Personal Rack.

It would be really swell if you were to have TWO "doughnuts" on your big wall harness, not just one. I highly recommend you scarf a "doughnut" off of an old harness, or have one sewn for you. If you do sew it, make sure you sew the livin' bejeepers out of it because it is a critical link.

If you are going to climb really hard aid, then I suggest you make one further modification to your harness, besides the one I mention below where you wrap tape around the point of connection where you tie the near end of your adjustable fifi cord, which you should do regardless of how hard you climb. For really hard aid, I like to have a wrap of bunjy cord around my harness in parallel to the two "doughnuts". I weigh about 145 lbs. and I use nine wraps of 1/4" shock cord which is about right for me. You should adjust the number of wraps upward or downward proportionately to your weight. Make the nine loops as tight as reasonably possible.

The purpose of the bunjy wraps is so that on really hard aid, you can clip your one daisy in short to the bunjy on your harness while you bounce test the piece above. This way if the piece you are testing rips, you will have a gentler fall on the piece you are attached to. This is especially important when the piece you are on sucks.

While the bunjy wraps are a permanent fixture on your harness, the carabiner you would clip into the wraps is not. You will only use it on really hard aid because otherwise it just gets in the way. You will know when you are on really hard aid when you are terrified and fearing for your very life! Merely being scared sh*tless does not qualify as "really hard." Being scared sh*tless is fundamental to the aid climbing experience.

When you are quite certain that you actually are on really hard aid, then you will not mind grabbing a designated keylock crab with no "tooth" and clipping it to your bunjy wrap. If you are right-handed, then the gate of the keylock carabiner faces left.

The bungy wrap is not nearly so essential when you are using adjustable daisies because you can really shorten up on those things. I used the bunjy a lot more when I only had traditional daisies. You will probably want to use your bunjy wrap when you are climbing aid that is rated PDH or PDH/DFU. Merely being rated DFU may not make you motivated enough to bother.

There is another system which you could try to replace the bungy wraps, and from the look of it, it could well be the better way. You can find it on the Yates Climbing and Rescue Equipment website. It will be described below.

[Aside: If you are an aid climber or aspirant, knowing your way around the Yates website is as fundamental as knowing your way around Fish Products website, and knowing your way around Tuan's Mountaineering Page, especially his Yosemite Rock section, and knowing your way around Chris Mac's Supertopo website, or knowing your way around the Petzl website. All of these websites contain enormous volumes of superb technical information and beta that you should be reading first before you bug this poor bastard.

If you do not have all of these websites BOOKMARKED, please do so NOW.]

The next thing you need to get is a point of connection from your harness to your aiders. These points of connection are called daisy chains or "daisies" and if you are doing things the way I am describing here, you will need two.

Traditional daisies are now COMPLETELY OBSOLETE and are NOT recommended for aid climbing, though more creative people may find uses for them in interior design.

If you are going to do things the better way, then you will need to get a pair of adjustable daisies.Dr. Pee'd On highly recommends Metolius because they have a D-Ring System which I have found to be really slick! They come in BLUE and YELLOW so you should buy one of each colour.

I have used more traditional adjustable daisies but do not like them because the steel buckle can begin to slip, especially when you do aggressive bounce testing which will be discussed in the next section called how to move up on aid without blowing it.

Please note: When I solo El Capitan, I do not actually climb it. I pull myself up on a 2:1 mechanical advantage! This is how adjustable aiders work to your benefit, and why they are clearly the better way. I might only "climb" it once, but I end up jugging it about FOUR times! Once to clean, twice to haul, and one again for general fixing, returning to the high point, and faffing about. I've done a LOT of "vertical miles."

When I made my first solo ascent of El Cap, I used a device called a Rope Ratchet which Chongo loaned to me. I used the 1/4" model, not the 3/8" model pictured in the link. While the Rope Ratchet actually works pretty well for pulling yourself up when used with traditional daisies, the adjustable daisies are really just The $#!&!

Yates has a new daisy chain system with a built-in SHORTY Screamer which looks to be The $#!&. If you are prone to making daisy chain falls as I am, this could end up becoming an expensive option. It could also be the better way because you don't have to faff about with bunjy wraps on your harness.

Now, take a good look at that daisy with the Shorty Screamer and please tell me "what's wrong with this photo?"

Buzzzzzzzz.

Too late!

What's wrong with the photo is that the daisy is NOT adjustable!

Here's a better look at the ADJUSTABLE daisy and built-in Screamer. It says it is not to be used while soloing. I have no idea why they would say that(?)

I'm sure those things would work fine, but as you know I prefer the Metolius system with the D-rings over the buckle system you see here at Yates.

There is another system for daisies and aiders which I have seen used only once by my partner Thomas Frischmann when we climbed Salathe Wall together. Thomas told me that he used this system a lot when he was climbing in Chamonix on routes that were heavily "equipped" with fixed pitons, and that it was a fast system for climbing the occasional aid move while free climbing.

I do not remember if Thomas used one aider or two, but I believe it was only one. He had the aider on a four-foot-long daisy of 5 mm cord. One end of the cord was attached to his harness, the other end was on top of a fifi hook to which the aider was attached.

He would clip the fixed pin with a crab, put the rope through the piece above him, put the fifi on the crab, climb up the aider, get me to hold him in tension on the rope (a tiresome pain in the ass over extended time periods!) and then while I was tensioning him momentarily, he would reach down to his 5 mm daisy and pull up the aider which had been hanging from the fifi on the piece below, hook the fifi over the crab on which I was holding him under tension, and repeat.

He did not have a fifi on his harness to hold him into the piece he was on. I - the belayer - had to do that, but it was only a momentary hold. This is OK when there are lots of fixed pieces and you don't have to faff around too much placing gear.

Thomas' aiding system worked pretty well all the way up past El Cap Spire - Thomas could do this A0/A1 style of climbing where he busting free moves in between aid, but when the free climbing got into 5.12 range, it was full on aid for both of us, and I remember loaning him a pair of my aiders. As he did more and more aid moves and fewer free moves, I became more and more ticked off, and finally just told him to take my damn aiders and start aiding!

If you click here on this link, you can see a photo of Tomaz Humar using the single aider system while soloing Reticent Wall.

If this system is good enough for the World's Greatest Climber to use on one of the World's Hardest Aid Routes, then it might be good enough for you, too.

The next thing you will need to get is a Kong-Bonatti Adjustable Fifi Hook which you can see properly rigged in the linked photo. I cannot find a single link anywhere on the whole damn www to these things, and yet they are indispensable to the better way. As per usual, Dr. Pee'd On brings it to you first.

As mentioned in the photo caption, you need to rig the fifi with the slipperiest 6 mm cord you can find. Do NOT use 7 mm even though this is what is actually stamped on the hook. You will find it far to stiff to operate. Not all 6mm cord will work, so find a very supple weave. If you do not have adjustable daisies, then you are NOT doing things the better way, and you will need to use a 2-metre-long piece of 6 mil cord to rig the hook. If you do have the adjustable daisies, then I am not sure of the exact overall length, but the operating length needs to be only about two feet. You must leave enough extra cord on the far end for the stopper knot which is shown in the photo and enough cord on the near end to tie it to your harness with half a double fisherman's knot. Take a close look at how mangled that fifi hook is, eh? It's really been gouged.

When you tie the near end of the cord to your harness, do not tie it on the top point of attachment (you wi$#!&op-stepping in order to extend your reach. Top-stepping will be described below, but the key to it is that you will not be working with the adjustable fifi pointing up on your harness with you hanging from IT - but rather you will be working with your adjustable fifi pulling down on your harness and hips as you pull up against it. If you do not "get" what I mean here, do not despair. Suffice it to say you want to attach the near end of your 6 mm adjustable fifi cord to the lower point of your harness.

On my harness, I have made a wrap of white cloth tape around the part of the harness to which I tie the near end of the 6 mm cord. This is definitely the better way as it saves on the substantial wear and tear that the near end knot will cause on your harness.

The last thing you will need to do is to rig a little piece of 3 mm cord on the top of the hook to make it easier to pull it out of the carabiner when you complete the move. Make sure you put the little knots in it that you see in the photo, or else the 3 mm cord will keep slipping down around the hook and annoy you to no end.

Here is a decent shot of a properly rigged adjustable fifi on a Yates Big Wall Harness. The photo is by hans, and is a link to itself.

The next thing you need to do is to attach your aiders to your daisies. Before I talk about aiders, I want to tell you how to attach the damn things so you don't lose them like a certain Big Wall Theorist who may already have been mentioned above. I will not put another link to this person because he is a friend, and I only poke fun at friends once per message. Besides, he may not be a big wall theorist. Even if he is a Big Wall Theorist, he has one really good idea which I will shameless plagiarize below.

At any rate, to attach your aiders to your daisy, you will need two carabiners per daisy, a locker and a keylock standard. These two carabiners are carabiners of the type which I call DESIGNATED CARABINERS which you use in your aid climbing system. This term means that they have a specific function for which they are used, and used for nothing else. These two carabiners are known as your Designated Aider Locker and your Designated Lead Carabiner. Since you have two daisies then you will need two of each.

For the record, Dr. Piton On HATES screwgate locking carabiners! I will suggest you dispense with the damn things because they get stuck! If you do not know how to open a stuck screwgate carabiner while on the wall, then you should ask Dr. Piton. This is an easy one to answer and I can do it quickly. Please be creative in the way you pose your question, and use a dire example of a stuck screwgate.

For your designated aider lockers, you could use something like the Petzl AMD Ball Lock Biner, which although a bit expensive, will do the job well. Feel free to substitute a pair of cheaper lockers if you can find them, or if you have them lying around. Save yourself some heartache and avoid screwgates!

For the keylock carabiner, which is your Designated Lead Carabiner, I suggest you use a Petzl Spirit. The advantage of the Spirit is that it is very strong, comes in swell colours so you can colour code your system, and has no teeth to catch in everything as you continuously clip and unclip it.

If you are not familiar with the Petzl no-tooth keylock system, please go here to the Petzl website and familiarize yourself with the concept and the product. I cannot link you directly there because the crafty bastards at Petzl kick you out to the home page. If you're clever and fast, you might find a really swell picture by clicking here.

Your Lead Carabiner remains on your aiders at all times, and is the carabiner that you will clip and unclip for EVERY aid move you make. I used to have these lightweight toothless crabs that I bootied somewhere, but because of the abuse these things suffer as your Designated Lead Carabiners, I destroyed the gates! You won't have this problem with a Spirit. Petzl makes good stuff.

Now you must put your Designated Lead Carabiner on the top of your aiders. It must pass through the top loops of BOTH aiders, so that both of your aiders are hanging from it. Orient it such that the gate faces away from you.

Next you must connect your aiders to your daisy by using your Designated Aider Locker. Assuming you are using two aiders per daisy, then you must make sure that your locker goes through both aiders through the same two loops as your lead carabiner. Note that the carabiners do not connect directly to each other, but simply pass through the same two loops of the aiders.

If you attach your aiders to your daisies in the manner described, it will be difficult but not impossible to drop them. This is a good thing when you are on a wall.

Knowing how to correctly attach your aiders to your daisies should be fundamental, yet I am amazed at how many people don't do it right. It's sort of like watching people on the ski hill - it appears to me that only about one in three knows how to correctly rig their pole straps! You watch otherwise excellent skiers zooming down the hill with their pole straps flailing in the wind!

Note: If you happen to learn of a Big Wall Theorist actually going climbing, you could secretly follow him or her to the cliff, and with any luck, a brand new pair of aiders will fall from the sky. Also, only a Big Wall Theorist would refer to "aiders" as "etriers," with the possible exception of a Real French Climber speaking in his native language. Otherwise, he would call them "aiders," too.

If you are not lucky enough to find a pair of aiders, then you will have to buy some. Yates makes some pretty swell-looking traditional aiders which you can see here. If you are buying four of them, you should buy two five-step aiders and two six-step aiders. You will want the six-step guys for testing those dodgy pieces while staying as low as you can. You will want the five-step guys because they are a bit lighter. Personally, I wouldn't go to a four-stepper.

Note that at the top of each aider, you will see a few extra substeps. These substeps are used when you are top-stepping, a difficult but necessary ordeal when you are aid climbing. You must learn to stand tall in the saddle.

If you can, buy four aiders in four DIFFERENT colours. If you cannot, then make sure that the five-steppers are of one colour, and the six-steppers are of another colour. You do not want two aiders of the same colour on the same daisy.

Should I ever find myself in the situation that I have 124 U.S. dollars plus tax plus shipping that I don't know what to do with, I will buy myself a set of these really bitchin' Yates Big Wall Ladders. These may be the same ones as my buddy Jon Fox showed me, that had a different-coloured third step, which is also a bitchin' idea and doesn't look to be the case in this photo. You could probably do this with a bit of red tape, and this might be a good idea because it is the third step that you always aim for.

$124 U.S., especially when converted to Hoser Dollars, is probably sufficient to pay off the national debt of most third-world countries, or at least to live for months in Paradise.

Now that you have all the STUFF you need, and now that you know how to RIG it, I will next teach you how to CLIMB with it.

In the meantime, if you want to see a real babe-O-licious HOTTIE who I found in my travels today, and who assists with this post in NO WAY WHATSOEVER, then I suggest you click here to see the ALL TIME KILLER CLIMBING BABE. Hell, we can all talk about her instead of all this boring carabiner stuff.

Look, I don't need to know how to stand up in my aiders. All I wanna know is how you make that extra cooool evil bigmouthed smurf face with the red eyes. I'll even hump a load to the base of the mother stone 4 U if you tell me how U do that...

Let's get this back to the top of the Aid forum in hopes of Dr. Pee'd On answering it with respect to actually getting on pieces and testing them and such (and don't forget to use my exclamation and question mark analogy).

And I think the above poster (sorry I forgot your name) can send back the Yates adj daisies. But let the truth of that come from the Doctor.

Quote:For the keylock carabiner, which is your Designated Lead Carabiner, I suggest you use a Petzl Spirit. The advantage of the Spirit is that it is very strong, comes in swell colours so you can colour code your system, and has no teeth to catch in everything as you continuously clip and unclip it.

Instead of the Petzl Spirit for the Designated Lead Carabiner, you were able to find a keylock oval. Would this not be the Better Way (tm)?

Wouldn't using an oval cause less shifting when weighting a dicey placement?

BTW, the oval referenced in the link above can be found here.

I suppose that you would also have to use a locking oval for the Designated Aider Locker.

My guess is that the petzel spirit used as a lead carabiner will not shift like it might when used under different circumstances, but act more like a hook and be easier to place into your pro. Take a look at the shape of the kong fifi hook, and see the similar shape between the two. Other than in that particular instance, kong oval keylocks RULE!

It is conceivable that it might work better, but the shifting is something you take care of as soon as you first weight the piece. I've never considered this to be a problem per se.

I think, though, for ease of clipping, I would still likely prefer the Petzl Spirit for the reason Len points out - it is more ergonomically friendly to clip since you do not have to rotate your wrist as far as you would in order to clip the oval.

Take a look here at the shape of the Kong-Bonatti adjustable fifi hook, and you will see what Len means.

The oval carabiners I happen to own are Black Diamond Ovals. They weigh 62 grams, only 2 g more than the Kong. They do, however, cost on average about three bucks more. But those Kong ovals come in some really SNAZZY COLOURS!

I use a lot of designated carabiners in my system, many of which are colour coded. So being the gear hound that I am, I am sure I could find a use for them somewhere!

Just probably not as my lead carabiners.

Black Diamond ovals are fairly cheap and work OK.

Dr. Pee'd EMPHATICALLY DOES NOT RECOMMENDOmega Pacific carabiners of ANY kind!

PTPP, I finally got around to reading this post with my undivided attention and learned a few things. By the way, the information you have at Dr. Piton's Ultimate Yosemite Listis excellent. It will take me awhile to wade through all that as well.

But I have a quick question. I understand the use of the adj. fifi for top stepping. You kind of get up there and crank that sucker down and lever off the tension to keep your balance. My question is: Can't you accomplish the same thing with the adj. daisy that is already running from your harness to the piece you are standing on. I recognize the benefit of the easy removal that the fifi provides. But is this the only benefit or am I missing something? Please enlighten me.

Your adjustable fifi is something that you use in addition to your adjustable daisies.

The adjustable daisy does not let you get in close enough to your piece. You really do need that fifi so you can crank yourself up tight to stand in your third steps.

The adjustable daisies sure make life easier because you can haul yourself up with a 2:1 mechanical advantage, thus sparing yourself the effort of actually having to climb your aiders.

But the daisies only take you so far, after which you need to fine tune yourself with the adjustable fifi.

When you start to stand tall in the saddle, you will need to millimetrically adjust your fifi to the precise length to stand in balance, and this is something you simply cannot do with adjustable daisies alone.

The fine art of topstepping will be discussed in the post entitled Ask Dr. Piton....about how to move up on aid without blowing it.

Those of watchful eye here in the place some are now calling the "Dr. Pee'd On Hangout" and who clicked on the link above may have noticed the emergence of a new personality.

Upon reading his first post, I wondered if he might be a B.W.T.

Yet when I read that he climbed "off the couch, old and fat" I realized there might indeed be hope - he could be "our kind" of dude.

For around here, we do things the better way, and you can find out precisely why I think our new personality could be "our kind" of dude by clicking HERE and scrolling 3/4 of the way down and looking for the BIG BOLD LETTERS.

Cheers,

Dr. Pee'd On

Notes:

Any resemblance between Dr. Pee'd On and Dr. Piton is purely co-incidental.

Since writing this post, I have received some new information concerning the Metolius adjustable daisies that I own, and have used for a number of years. I like Metolius because they don't slip over time like some of the buckle-style ones can.

However since writing this, I have been told by at least one person that Metolius daisy chains can break during a daisy chain fall. It's not hard to do a factor 2 on your daisy. Even Metolius recommends not using them as your primary anchors [even though I continue to do this]. Another problem with the Metolius adjustable daisies is that they are impossible to release under load, and require a considerable amount of skill to operate on traverses.

After the Hubers' slide show last month, I had an opportunity to speak with John Yates, who showed me his newly upgraded Yates adjustable daisies.

The new Yates buckle is much beefier - it's a motorcycle tie-down buckle manufactured by Ancra.

It features:

[*:3dce5d039b]a heavier spring

[*:3dce5d039b]a recessed release tab which won't allow the buckle to open if you accidentally press it against the wall

[*:3dce5d039b]the ability to optionally shorten it by putting a cord through the two holes you see on top

"The buckle should last for eighty to a hundred pitches, Pete, before it starts to slip," John told me.

"Yeah, but then you have to buy a new one, right?"

"But dude - it's only seventeen bucks!"

The man has a point. I'm gonna get me a pair, and give 'em a shot. You can click here to read about Yates adjustable daisies. Traditional [non-adjustable] daisies have gone the way of the dinosaur. They are completely obsolete - don't even waste your money.

And as for wall harnesses? Look no further than the Yates Big Wall Harness! This thing just keeps on gettin' b*tchin'er and b*tchin'er. I'm on my second Yates Big Wall Harness, and if Johnny cuts me a decent deal, I'd like to upgrade to the newest one, which has even better gear loops and a super-cushy waist. [HINT]

As you can see from the link, they come in new half-sizes, and for instance if you are a narrow-waisted bike-riding hottie with bigger thighs, you might want to mix and match the leg loops and the waist belt. I would like to see John provide two donuts - I use two on my harness [the one donut is stolen from my old Yates Big Wall Harness] to reduce crowding and clusterf*ckage.